What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Bryn]

I thought collared doves were supposed to be almost extinct. You are lucky then!

Collared doves are as common as muck. I am all too often awoken by one or more calling down the chimney. Are you not thinking of turtle doves? As has been mentioned here before, collared doves may look charming but are particularly agressive. They frequently see off magpies from my garden.

[HighlandDougie]

One morning last week - sunny, cloudless skies here in the À-M - a small flock of swifts or martins suddenly appeared, swooping around the house and the surrounding area. I thought early February seemed a bit early for their return, despite there being insects around (bees on the flowering rosemary, in the crocuses etc). And then they left. En route to somewhere further north? Or south? Wherever they were going, it was a cheering sight.

[greenilex]

Still very much the time of year here when one longs for the warm south...I am green with envy, my thoughts are in Provence.

[Vox Humana]

A male Sparrowhawk breezed into the garden this morning and made a pass at the Goldfinches on the feeders. He didn't look as if he were really trying and didn't make a catch. He landed in our apple tree, but was off again before I had got the lens cap off the camera.

[Dave2002]

Have you heard this bird recently?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJB8SJf2J8M

I thought Dodos were extinct!

Hint - look at the record label.

[Padraig]

I thought Dodos were extinct!

Hint - look at the record label.

Some are.

Some can still charm the birds off the trees.

[ardcarp]

Just seen a single avocet feeding on river Axe. There are plenty a bit further west on the Exe near Topsham. But the occasional one goes off piste. Also reports of a bittern booming there (among reeds on Seaton Marshes).

[Serial_Apologist]

Collared doves are as common as muck. I am all too often awoken by one or more calling down the chimney. Are you not thinking of turtle doves? As has been mentioned here before, collared doves may look charming but are particularly agressive. They frequently see off magpies from my garden.

Yes, you're right. That said, collared doves are a rarity around these parts, though wood pigeons are everywhere. My dad always used to go "Aha: supper! Bang bang"; to which Mum would reply, "You wouldn't get much meat off one of those!"

[Serial_Apologist]

Woodpecker hammering away at a tree right outside my window here, oblivious to the passing traffic it would seem. This is London, just 6 miles from Trafalgar Square, for god's sake!

[vinteuil]

Yes, you're right. That said, collared doves are a rarity around these parts, though wood pigeons are everywhere. My dad always used to go "Aha: supper! Bang bang"; to which Mum would reply, "You wouldn't get much meat off one of those!"

... I remember my brother as a teenager coming back in triumph with a wood-pigeon he had killed with a catapult, and demanding we have it for supper. Our mother agreed - but had to nip in to the butchers' to buy three more pigeons to make an adequate meal...


.

[oddoneout]

... I remember my brother as a teenager coming back in triumph with a wood-pigeon he had killed with a catapult, and demanding we have it for supper. Our mother agreed - but had to nip in to the butchers' to buy three more pigeons to make an adequate meal....

In my neck of the woods the collared doves are pretty unassuming and unassertive creatures. The wood pigeons, although they don't attack, tend to dominate by virtue of bulk and numbers, and most of the other birds tend to wait until they're out of the way. One might not feed a family, but they are big fat birds and make a godawful mess when run over. In my previous house I hated hearing the crunch of the tiles as they landed on the roof.
Week last Sunday the local buzzard family came out for a jaunt - 5 birds riding the thermals. As I noticed on a previous mass outing the other birds weren't bothered by them, not even the corvids.
A couple of days ago a bizarre encounter occurred when I was stepped out of my back door and a partridge launched itself off the top of the fence, only just missing my head before it whirred off down the garden. They used to be a fairly common hazard on the allotment(low flying, high speed ground to air launches, deposits of eggs and, not least, extreme aggression once when I inadvertently disturbed a sitting hen)but as a garden bird? Perhaps they are scoping new territory - the allotments are only a minute or so up the railway line from my garden. Pheasants try and set up home in the back garden each year and I dissuade them, an entertaining process as their straight line low level launch habit only works if they are facing in the right direction - the garden is well over 200 foot long but only 15 foot wide max, so a certain amount of encountering of the chain link fence often precedes a successful exit.

[ardcarp]

We're over-run with pheasants courtesy of local 'shoots' but we seldom see a partidge. What part of the country are you in, odders?
I and our neighbours occasionally have mallards laying eggs (which never come to anything) in our gardens, which is strange because we're not especially close to water (unless you count the sea half a mile away and its estuary, ditto.)

[Bryn]

We're over-run with pheasants courtesy of local 'shoots' but we seldom see a partidge. What part of the country are you in, odders?
I and our neighbours occasionally have mallards laying eggs (which never come to anything) in our gardens, which is strange because we're not especially close to water (unless you count the sea half a mile away and its estuary, ditto.)

When I attended the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne for a post-grad placement, back in 1992, they had 'pet' partridges running around the place.

[Richard Tarleton]

I can't remember when I last saw a grey partridge in the UK. They seem to be in decline everywhere, whereas large no's of red-legged are reared and released for shooting. There is no evidence that red-legged drive out greys, where both are present the greys do well....but greys entirely dependent on wild reproduction, and habitat.

The instinct of a pheasant when disturbed or alarmed is to run for cover and hide, not to fly - they can only be persuaded to do something so against their nature by using beaters, and trip wires.

[Bryn]

In my neck of the woods the collared doves are pretty unassuming and unassertive creatures. The wood pigeons, although they don't attack, tend to dominate by virtue of bulk and numbers, and most of the other birds tend to wait until they're out of the way. One might not feed a family, but they are big fat birds and make a godawful mess when run over. In my previous house I hated hearing the crunch of the tiles as they landed on the roof.
Week last Sunday the local buzzard family came out for a jaunt - 5 birds riding the thermals. As I noticed on a previous mass outing the other birds weren't bothered by them, not even the corvids.
A couple of days ago a bizarre encounter occurred when I was stepped out of my back door and a partridge launched itself off the top of the fence, only just missing my head before it whirred off down the garden. They used to be a fairly common hazard on the allotment(low flying, high speed ground to air launches, deposits of eggs and, not least, extreme aggression once when I inadvertently disturbed a sitting hen)but as a garden bird? Perhaps they are scoping new territory - the allotments are only a minute or so up the railway line from my garden. Pheasants try and set up home in the back garden each year and I dissuade them, an entertaining process as their straight line low level launch habit only works if they are facing in the right direction - the garden is well over 200 foot long but only 15 foot wide max, so a certain amount of encountering of the chain link fence often precedes a successful exit.

Collared doves were the subject of this morning's Tweet of the Day on Radio 4.